Max on the ANC membership

What has become of the ANC?



Max du Preez


The ANC has become an insult to all those who carry its membership cards and those who voted for it last April - and to the many who died for it over the years.

Yes, sir, I mean you too, you who loves sending angry messages, often with accusations of racism, to the News24.com comments section whenever anyone criticises the government or those in Luthuli House.

What has become of the self-respect of this once proud organisation that was formed 98 years ago and brought us giants such as Sol Plaatje, Albert Luthuli, OR Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Chris Hani and Nelson Mandela?

If I were a member of the ANC, I would stand up and demand that my leadership immediately deal with Youth League president Julius Malema with his gangsta lifestyle, with his blatant lies and with his insults to the media and all others who don't like him.

Come on, the entire nation knows that you cannot buy a R814 000 AMG Merc, a R250 000 Breitling watch, two houses worth more than R5m, a dressing room full of Fabiani and other designer clothes, a Louis Vuitton handbag worth R4 800 (yes, Juju wears handbag) and who knows what else on a salary of at most R40 000 (he said the other day his salary, rumoured to have been R20 000, had at least been doubled recently).

His monthly payment on his bonds of R2.35m on the two houses (it is there for anyone to see in the Deeds Office) alone cost him R23 462 a month.

Life is expensive

I have a very good idea about how expensive life is if your name (or your benefactor) is not Tokyo Sexwale or Nicky Oppenheimer.

I live in a modest home in a working class Cape Town neighbourhood, I drive a four-year-old Peugeot station wagon, I buy my clothes from Woolworths and Cape Union Mart, I have a six-year-old Swatch watch I bought on a sale and I have very little spare cash at the end of every month. (I don't even have a handbag.)

Yet I am double Juju's age, I have two university degrees (plus an honorary one), I have been a newspaper editor, a television executive and a university lecturer and I have published eight very successful books.

Malema has a bad matric and absolutely no training for anything apart from political rabble-rousing.

(Oh, ok, I only have degrees in law and political science, but Juju has an honorary doctorate in Tenderpreneurship.)

Come on, we all know Malema was lying when he said he didn't have anything to do with any companies in business with local and provincial government.

Not only is his name still registered on those companies' books, he even declared (repeatedly) that he had resigned as director of SGL Engineering Projects when he was elected to his Youth League position - but SGL only came into existence after that date!

Stealing from the poor?

Malema doesn't even respect the public enough to manufacture credible lies.

He says he's never seen a million rand, but he put down more than R3m IN CASH for the two houses he bought.

We read in City Press on Sunday that the Malema companies with state tenders are notorious for their shoddy work and bad treatment of workers. Some of the township bridges they got millions to build have collapsed within months after completion.

Is that not stealing from the poor? Sies!

Malema insulted every promising young black South African when he rejected questions about his lavish lifestyle with the accusation that his critics "just didn't want to see a black diamond shine".

I know quite a few "black diamonds" in business, academics and the media world. They are shining, and would shine even if they lived in New York or London, because of their own intelligence and hard work, not because they can get their hands on public money.

Pack of lies

So, my dear reader-with-the-ANC-membership-card, which part of this disgraceful pack of lies did you not get?

Or has the ANC stooped so low that you're happy with Jacob Zuma's response that Malema isn't a civil servant, so he can do what he wants?

He wasn't enough of a private citizen when the state decided to award him official police protection and a whole set of bodyguards, costing the taxpayer hundreds of thousands.

Remember what he said at his press conference last week? That he had complete access to the president and was close to every minister and premier?

Perhaps we should start investigating the role of some of these "friends" of Malema to see where they fit in.

Coming to think of it, perhaps Malema is simply a decoy, diverting the attention of the media and the public away from the real gangster capitalists in government and the ANC.

Everyone who reads some of the comments on South African websites would know how many despicable white racists there still are in our country.

Malema is reinforcing every caricature bigots have in their narrow minds of how Africans with power behave.

Kick him out of public life

Let's kick him out of public life and forget him as a bad dream we once had.

And let's never allow someone like him in any position of power again.

For the sake of the ANC's good name, yes, but above all for the sake of the pride of the people of South Africa.

The ball is in the court of the ANC's members.

Max du Preez

Comments by Sonny

The Comrades at Luthuli House did not inherit corruption, they were born out of corruption!